A columnist of the Brownsville Herald delves into the origins of the Spanish language in two parts. Part I: How it came to be.

Geography plays a huge part in the diverse roots of the Spanish language. Many words were borrowed from the various ethnic groups that occupied the Iberian peninsula over time. And of course, each of those cultures spoke a language developed via a combination of other languages.

The Latin language came to the Iberian peninsula with the Roman invasion in 218 B.C., and was mixed with other languages used at the time.

That “language” soon developed into two versions: one was called “Latín clásico” and was spoken by Spain’s educated. The other was called “Latín vulgar” and was spoken by ordinary people. We find evidence of this in the literature of the time, the “Jarchas,” a type of “Cántigas de Amigos” poetry written 100 years before the “Poema del Mío Cid” (1140 AD). That combined the three languages alive in Spain at that time — Hebrew, Spanish or Castilian, and Arabic.

In  “Poema del Mío Cid” we see an entirely new language that later became known as Castillian, or Spanish. From the classic Latin, Spanish derived words such as  “alegre” (“alacrem”), “cueva” (“cava”), “frío” (“frigidum”), “leer” (“legere”), and hundreds of others.

Thousands of Spanish words are also derived from Arabic due to Islamic presence on the Iberian peninsula from 711 to 1492 A.D.  One such example is “ojalá,” which is Spanish for “I hope” or “I wish that…”, from the Arabic phrase “God willing.”

Read the full article here.